Research repertoires and boundary work in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI)

ABSTRACT

The idea of scouting the sky in search of extra-terrestrial signals (SETI) was first proposed in the late 1950s; soon afterwards, its scope was formalised in the so-called Drake Equation, a probabilistic argument to gauge the number of ‘civilisations’ capable of radio communication on the basis of astronomical, biological and cultural factors. Since then, radio telescopes around the world have been searching for an artificial signal from elsewhere in the universe, a sign of extraterrestrial communication. How have SETI practitioners claimed scientific legitimacy and epistemic authority over the search for extra-terrestrial life, a matter often regarded to be at the very periphery of science? And how have they succeeded (or failed) in maintaining them over time? The historical trajectory of SETI offers the opportunity to investigate how, over time, an interdisciplinary community coalesced around a research repertoire and navigated ebbs and flows of interest by rearticulating the methods and scope of their research. The ‘probability repertoire’ around which the SETI community coalesced is an evolving entity, entailing significant boundary work. As with every successful repertoire, it is a flexible but always entailing a recognisable alignment of material, social and epistemic components instrumental for a research community in gaining recognition and negotiating its epistemic positioning within the always shifting boundaries of science.

KEYWORDS:

• Research repertoire
• boundary work
• interdisciplinary communities
• change and continuity
• Drake equation
• search for extra-terrestrial intelligence

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Civilization’ is an actors’ category; it is broadly used to indicate the population of a planet that is capable, on the whole, of broadcasting radio signals for communication purposes. This ideal is highly technocentric: the decision-making process and the content of the message itself are imagined to be strictly connected to the use of mathematic and rigorous logic, which are often thought of as universal.

2 This phrase is so common in SETI that it is almost impossible to attribute it to a single author. Some examples of usage in the search for extra-terrestrial life context can be found at NASA History Division, 2009 and SETI Institute, 2023.

3 Frank Drake, interview 27th February 2016.

4 The debate originally appeared in the Planetary Society’s Bioastronomy News, beginning with Vol.7, No.3, 1995.

5 Entrepreneur and SETI advocate, interview 16th February 2016.

6 Interview 25th January 2016.

7 All other groups throughout the world are either affiliated to these two or have only sporadic interest in this kind of research.

8 RP, computer engineer, interview, 26th February 2016.

9 SETI@home, one of the very first public science projects carried through the internet, paved the way in the following years for a variety of similar projects carried through the online platform the Berkeley engineers had designed.

10 More details about the Breakthrough projects can be found at http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/1 (last access September 2023)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Valentina Marcheselli

Valentina Marcheselli is a Post-Doc Research Fellow at Cà Foscari, University of Venice. Her research project focuses on knowledge making practices at the intersection between microbial, environmental and planetary scales.